


if i told you i loved you would you take it the wrong way?

by goingmywaydoll



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Professor Lily, Single Parent James, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, and harry basically sets them up, james is a terrible flirt but lily loves him anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 23:43:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9630182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingmywaydoll/pseuds/goingmywaydoll
Summary: “I swear I’m a good dad,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. “Usually I’m a bit more put together than this. You’ve got me a little…frazzled.”“Oh?” she asks, willing her mouth to not twitch into a smile as she wonders how someone like James, with his lopsided glasses and messy hair, could ever seem not frazzled.“You’re just really fit and—fuck, I just called my son’s professor fit,” he says, his eyes comically wide behind his glasses. “And then I swore. Clearly, I’m making a good first impression.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> a mash up of a professor!au and a single parent!au that i wrote for jilyfest ages ago bc single dad!james is my favorite james, second only to alive!james.

Lily isn’t in the business of favoring her students. She’s a firm believer in the idea that confidence is just as important as skill in Charms and if her students see her treating others better than them, well, she watches Severus with his Slytherins. She may not be head of any house (yet) but that doesn’t mean she’s not going to provide a support system for her students. And she’ll never forget the way Neville Longbottom came crying to her after Potions one day. She may have been a member of the Slug Club during her own Hogwarts years but that doesn’t mean she’s going to perpetuate any of that thinking with her students.

Except she can’t stop herself with Harry. Thin little first year Harry Potter with his knobby knees and scruffy hair. Harry Potter with his little hand shooting in the air when she asks if anyone knows how to levitate an object. And apparently Harry Potter with the fit single dad, if her fifth year girls have anything to say about it.

She had gone to school with James Potter, known him vaguely, but he had been a couple years ahead of her and though Severus had hated him with a open and deep-seeded passion when they had been friends, Lily found that she didn’t know him well enough to pass any judgement other than that he was quite fit, something Marlene and Emmeline, as well as the rest of Hogwart’s student body agreed heartily with. All she knew know was that his son was the sort of quietly clever boy that would rather not draw unneeded attention to himself. She liked him instantly.

“I hear his girlfriend dumped him with the baby right in the middle of the war,” Lily can hear Beatrice Dobbin whisper not so quietly to Pamela Galston as they worked on summoning various objects from around the room. It’s ten-fifty in the morning on a Wednesday and her fifth years seem particularly talkative that day about a subject she has no knowledge of, but can only guess after hearing whispers of Harry Potter’s dad’s meeting with Dumbledore.

“ _I_ hear that he shagged a Death Eater and that’s why the mum isn’t ‘round anymore,” Margot Fawcett says, grinning victoriously as Pamela and Gemma turn to face her.

“Don’t be ridiculous, he—“

“ _I_ heard that Miss Dobbins, Miss Galston, and Miss Fawcett are in class currently and should thus curb their tendencies towards gossip for the time being,” Lily says, leaning back on her desk at the front of the room, one eyebrow raised and her arms crossed.

The class laughs collectively while the three Ravenclaws blush furiously and mutter in unison, “Sorry, Professor Evans.”

“Now,” Lily says, addressing the class at large, “You can put your wands away, it’s nearly eleven. And I believe you have essays due today?” With a wave of her wand, nearly thirty essays fly across the room to land in a neat pile on her desk. “Mr Bexley? I do worry about how I will read your essay on Patronus charms if you do not take your quill off the page.” The class titters as they pack their bags and Bexley slinks up to the front of the class room to hand her his parchment. “If you wanted an extension, you could have asked, you know.”

“Sorry, Professor,” he says before adding, “Quidditch, you know,” and shrugging.

“You’re playing against Slytherin on Saturday, no?” Lily asks kindly and the boy nods, his face the very picture of dejectedness. “I’m sure you’ll do smashing, especially if you spent so much time practicing and not writing my essay.”

The boy’s ears go pink and Lily sighs. “Tell you what. I’ll read this one and if I decide it has potential, I’ll offer a rewrite. Get it to me by Friday and I may change your mark.”

“Thanks, Professor Evans!” He immediately lights up, grinning widely at her. “I promise to do better this time, I swear. Blimey, this is why you’re my favorite professor.”

She blushes, waving off his comment with a hand before dismissing him and walking around her desk to sit, the pile of papers waiting to be marked up. Just as she dips her quill in the inkwell, the door to her classroom opens. A tall, dark haired man with round glasses is pushed in, tripping over his feet a bit. Lily holds back a laugh before standing, several questions on the tip of her tongue.

They’re soon answered by another addition to the room. Harry Potter is grabbing the man’s hand and tugging him down the aisle of desks towards Lily.

“Come _on_ ,” Harry says, finally pulling the rather reluctant looking man to Lily’s desk. It’s when she gets a good look at him that she realizes she recognizes him.

“You’re James Potter!” she exclaims before she can stop herself. His eyebrows shoot up and his hazel eyes are wide as her face heats up. She glances at Harry quickly, who’s beaming widely up at her.

“One and only,” James says, running a hand through his already disheveled hair.

“Professor Evans, this my dad,” Harry says, looking proudly up at James. It’s just about one of the sweetest things she’s ever seen, the way he looks at his dad. “Dad, this is the professor I told you about.”

“Hi,” she says, blushing again. “Lily Evans.”

“I know,” James says, smiling. It takes a second for the smile to slip off his face, red immediately tinging his cheeks. “I mean, I just—We went to school together. I didn’t mean—Wow, I’m mucking this up, aren’t I?”

“S’all right,” Lily says. “I remember you.”

“You do?” he asks incredulously. Lily blushes again— _Merlin_ , why won’t she stop blushing?

“Yeah.” She nods, brushing her long hair out of her face. “You were a few years above me, but I remember you. Can’t say I’m not surprised you know who I am, though.”

“Seriously? ‘Course I remember Lily Evans! You were—“ he breaks off quickly, then coughs to cover it. “I mean, you were a prefect, so…”

The room is filled with a silence Lily desperately wants to end but can’t seem to think of what to say without making her come across as even more of a nutter. Harry, mercifully, breaks it.

“Professor Evans is the best professor at Hogwarts,” he says, beaming up at her. “Even better than McGonagall. But don’t tell her I said that,” he adds quickly.

“Of course,” James says as he nods solemnly.

“A teacher is only as good as her students,” she says, ruffling Harry’s hair. “And—don’t tell the other students this—you’re my favorite too.” She lets herself slip up a bit because she knows Harry won’t let it go to his head; though James, it seems, is an entirely different story she decides as she sneaks a look at his face in response to her praise. He looks utterly beside himself with pride over his son, his chest puffed up.

“Well, that’s not much of a surprise,” James says, nudging Harry, who blushes hard.

“Dad’s here on business,” Harry says, eager to change the subject. “He works for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, you know. Dumbledore—“

“All right there, mate,” James interrupts, looking at Lily sheepishly. “He’d talk your ear off about my job if I didn’t stop him.”

“I thought you were an auror?” she asks. Once again, James looks at her, surprise written on his face as Lily wracks her brain for a spell that will swallow her into the ground.

“I was,” James replies. “But it got a bit dangerous, even after the War was over. So I took a less risky job, since I had Harry to worry about.”

“My dad was a part of the Order—“ Harry says excitedly, before James nudges him again pointedly. He breaks off, looking down bashfully.

“It’s okay, I was going to be too,” Lily admits. “Dumbledore talked to me about it my seventh year, but by the time I graduated the War was over so…”

“Blimey, we could have met a lot sooner,” says James, running his hand through his hair yet again. She wonders what it would feel like to run her own fingers through that hair, before promptly cutting herself off. She can’t go about having fantasies about her students’ parents, no matter how fit they were. Feeling her face heat up just at the thought of her and James when she had only just met him, she turns to Harry.

“Don’t you have Transfiguration in five minutes?” Lily asks, crossing her arms and sliding into her role as professor quickly.

“Oi, you told me you didn’t have any classes left for the day!” James says, gaping at his son, who ducks under James’s arms before bolting from the room, throwing a goodbye over his shoulder. “Little berk,” mutters James, shaking his head before snapping his head up to look at Lily, a slightly shameful look across his face. “Sorry. Probably shouldn’t refer to my son as a little berk.”

“To each his own,” she says, shrugging, because James had said it so fondly and also because a bashful James is even more adorable than a fondly teasing father James.

“I swear I’m a good dad,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. “Usually I’m a bit more put together than this. You’ve got me a little…frazzled.”

“Oh?” she asks, willing her mouth to not twitch into a smile as she wonders how someone like James, with his lopsided glasses and messy hair, could ever seem _not_ frazzled.

“You’re just really fit and—fuck, I just called my son’s professor fit,” he says, his eyes comically wide behind his glasses. “And then I swore. Clearly I’m making a good first impression.”

“Well, when the charming single dad of one of my favorite students appears in my classroom, it’s hard not to make a good first impression,” she says, smiling at him softly. “Pretend I didn’t just say Harry was one of my favorite students again, McGonagall would have my head.”

“You think I’m charming?” he asks, smirking now.

“Let me guess,” she says, “You stopped listening the second I called you charming.”

“Spot on, Professor Evans,” he says and she hates the way her breath catches at the way he says her title. “It’s too bad you’re the professor, otherwise I’d give you an Exceeds Expectations for mind reading.”

“Only an E?” she asks, cocking her head slightly.

“Oh, I’m saving the Outstanding for later,” he replies and then—Lily thinks her heart stops—he winks at her.

“There’s a later?” she asks innocently.

“Oh trust me, Miss Evans,” he says, “there’ll be a later.”

“You’re very sure of yourself, Mr Potter,” she says, not sure when their flirting became so shameless and not quite bringing herself to care.

James shrugs and says, “How’d you like to be sure too? Hogsmeade this weekend?”

“Blimey, are we in fifth year again?” she asks, one eyebrow raised.

“Well, I figured I wanted to ask you out so badly when we were at school, might as well give sixteen year old James Potter what he wanted.”

“You wanted to ask me out?” she asks, any self-assured front fading.

“Well…yeah, ‘course I did,” he says, shrugging and she can see his confidence disappearing too. His hand springs to his hair as he continues, “I mean, you were smart and pretty in school so yeah, I—wait, not that you’re not smart and pretty now, in fact you look pretty damn great. And now I’m rambling, which never bodes well for any party involved and I’m rubbish at asking a girl out, it’s been years—which I am now realizing I really shouldn’t have said, so I’m going to shove off and hope that you never have to see me again.” He stops, his face scrunched up rather adorably as he looks at her. “I’ve really fucked this up, haven’t I?”

“Not even in the slightest,” she says, shaking her head.

“Really?” he asks. “Well, that’s shocking.”

“You’re even cuter when you’re nervous.”

“You think I’m cute?” he asks, grinning.

“Merlin, we already went over this,” she says, rolling her eyes but laughing all the same. A comfortable silence settles over the room, one in which realization settles deep in Lily’s stomach and she forces herself to say, “Look, James, I’d love to go out with you—“

“Brilliant!” he says and Lily winces at how excited he looks.

“But you’re the father of one of my students and I can’t risk that. If we were to break up…Well, I couldn’t put that on Harry, or you.”

“So we don’t break up,” he says simply.

“Did you just imply we should get married?” she asks and his eyes go wide.

“No! Blimey, I’m not handling this well at all,” he says, fidgeting slightly. “I just meant—well, I’m not sure what I meant. I just fancy you a lot. Even though we just met. Well, I fancied you at school too. And Harry loves you. So that’s about all my criteria for women.”

Lily can feel her resolve breaking as James looks at her imploringly. She does really want to go out with him but there’s so much more to consider. They’re not at school anymore, and he’s got a kid, a kid she knows and quite likes and has to see for the next six years.

“Look, if you don’t want to go, or if it’ll make you uncomfortable, you can say no, I’ll understand, really,” he says. “But Harry doesn’t have to know. I’ve been right careful with girls in the past with him. I don’t usually introduce them to him anyway, he’ll just get his hopes up, or they won’t want a fully grown kid. All I’m saying is a cup of tea. We can figure out the rest later.”

“Fine,” she says, before she can stop herself or think about how she may regret it. “Yeah, I’ll go out with you.”

“Really?” James says, lighting up once more. “Lovely, just—wow, I never thought Lily Evans would ever say yes to me. Blimey, Sirius is going to flip.”

“Exactly how much did you like me at school?” she asks, the beginnings of a smirk making their way onto her face.

“Doesn’t matter,” James says quickly, waving a hand. “Completely insignificant really. Don’t worry about it. In fact, forget I ever said anything. School, what school? I didn’t even know who you were.”

There’s a pause and then: “That didn’t work did it?”

“Just dug yourself a deeper hole, I’m afraid,” she says, laughing.

“Funny, I can’t bring myself to care,” he says, returning her smile. “I’ve got a date with Lily bloody Evans.”

“Professor Evans has a date with Mr Potter!” The smiles quickly slide off their faces as they turned slowly to face the door. Three fifth year girls were standing in the doorway to Lily’s classroom, grinning widely at the piece of gossip they’d just acquired.

“So much for Harry not knowing?” Lily says, cringing slightly as the three girls run off, giggling and whispering amongst themselves.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” James says. “Something tells me you’re going to be around for the long haul.”


End file.
